Jim Hillibish: Beard wins war, liberates newsroom

I got a new beard trimmer. This would not be news even in our hyper-local era. The real news is this little puppy solves everything.

It has — believe it — a micro-mini vacuum cleaner. So you’re trimming along and instead of dumping the leavings in the sink drain, it sucks them into its own little Hoover.

This efficiently ends my wife’s only remaining beard bitch, if I may use the word.

My beard for 40 years presents more testy trouble. It prompted a newsroom war when I appeared with it on the doorstep of my newspaper.

At that time, 1974, there were strict rules. Reporters had to look like insurance agents, all scrubbed, no scruffy. We had a necktie dress code and an appearance ethic — no hippie-dippy, marijuana-induced facial hair.

All this flew into the face of my personal beard pact. I’m a redhead, so I have naturally transparent skin. Long before the beard hairs break the surface, you can see them.

This caused a lot of shouting in my Army career. It looked like I was not shaving right after I shaved. The cure for that is to dry shave with a bayonet. My teeth still grind.

When I got out, I made a promise to myself. I’d never shave. Trimming was OK, blades and foam and bayonets, forget it.

Our boss here at the newspaper, Clayt Horn, hated - no, detested - beards. Jim Weber mentioned that when we talked about a job. I think he said something like, “He’ll throw you out the window.”

I looked closely and found a stubbly face broom — on him. Spence was in an epic fight to keep his beard. He was winning, but it took a medical excuse from a doctor (nobody noticed the doctor was his dentist).

Spence possessed the world’s only beard with a medical deferment.

So I got the job, the beard stayed and the beard ban broke. Soon, half the newsroom looked like “Fiddler on the Roof.” Clayt was still growling, but this remains the only newsroom war he lost.

The beard actually helped my career. I was the cop reporter and could identify with any number of scruffy criminals.

I learned later that beards were the first to go gray, then pure white. I’m still a redhead, but my beard is Santa Claus.

My mom was the only person who remembered what I looked like without a face broom. She said the beard detracted from charms that only a mother could love.

I remember sitting on the couch with a girlfriend. Mom viewed any GF as a potential fiancee and launched into the usual “Jimmy” funny stories of my youth.

I knew it was coming.

“Jim really is nice looking under that terrible beard.”

Indeed, my wife has never seen me without the beard. All these years of prickly puckers. Hey, at last dogs like it. Our mini dachshund stares into my face.

“Jim looks exactly like me!”

Well not exactly, but I can admit to some similarities. The only thing is beware of the Norelco Beard Vac. It’s real easy to get enamored in technology. I took her down to a quarter inch.

P.S. I might add that our editor, Jeff Gauger, has a beard AND a motorcycle, and Clayt, the building is still standing.